Tag: Video

Tuesday night niche parts of the internet went a little bonkers when the season 6 trailer of Game of Thrones was released, a week earlier than any fan anticipated.

HBO released the footage simultaneously on Facebook and Youtube. Both platforms quickly racked up millions of views, but I was really interested to see the what the difference was between the two and what that could mean for video sharing….(I promise there are no Season 6 spoilers in this post!)

Actually my thinking started last month when Ok Go – an American band, in part famous for their innovative music videos – released their latest video and chose to do so on Facebook only.

If a band that is famous for its music videos chooses Facebook over a dedicated video sharing platform, what does that mean for online video sharing? Has facebook overtaken Youtube as a video distribution platform?

Game of Numbers

Lets have a look at the figures that are publicly available for the Game of Thrones trailer, which used both platforms for a comparison.

14 hours after the release of the trailer the Youtube upload had gained over 6 millions views:

But the footage shared on Facebook, well, that had over 19 million views:

So on the face of it, Facebook appeared to be performing over 300% better than Youtube.

But is it?

I suppose that depends on how each platform counts its views – how long does a video play for before it’s considered a view?

I’ve done some googling and Youtube, it seems, just don’t tell you what their time limit is – they don’t want people gaming the system, especially when you-tubers can earn income from advertising on their videos. This from Atlanta Analytics seems to be the most plain English explanation on HOW Youtube counts it’s views:

“YouTube video count WILL increment when:

You watch a video on youtube.com, as long as you don’t reload the video a bazillion times….You watch an embedded video (using YouTube’s own HTML5 or Flash player) on another domain that requires you to hit play.

YouTube will NOT increment video count when:

You watch an embedded video in a player that has autoplay enabled (video begins playing immediately on page load).You watch a video that is loaded through a proprietary player via the YouTube API.”

But Facebook’s own insights shows me that public view count is:

“…videos on your Page watched for 3 seconds or more.”

From what I can gather from my reading it counts everything on it’s site or embedded elsewhere with or without autoplay.

So if videos on Facebook auto-play while you are scrolling through your feed, and if you are pausing for just a few seconds to read friends updates above or below the post it registers as a view, How accurate an indication of view counts are these figures? Did the Game of Thrones trailer really rack up that many views?

A look at Facebook Insights

Now I don’t have access to Game of Thrones video insights, but I do have access to other pages we’ve shared videos to and I can take a closer look at the figures there.

This is a video we shared onto the Stirchley Baths facebook page

Ron Coley is in 60’s and has lived in Stirchley since a boy. in the 1970’s he used to use the baths once a week for his, well, weekly bath. Twas quirky….

So according to the insights of the 431 views, only 56 watched to almost completion, that’s 12% of the total number displayed by Facebook as a “view” And when we throw in another set of stats. Facebook’s Autoplay vs Click to Play figures then it tells you something else again:

The number of people who actively chose to click to watch the video was far far lower than those that watched it through auto play, but the retention rate of those that chose to watch to almost completion was much higher when someone had chosen to click on the link (10% on the AP compared to 52% CTP).

You can also break this down further in the insights if you want to, to people who watched with and without sound, but you don’t need to to see that Facebook’s Autoplay in news feed has a positive impact on viewer numbers on its platform, but nowhere near to the degree that the public facebook figures would have you believe.

The same video on Youtube had much lower viewing figures (30 overall from 26 unique users) but had a 74% view to completion rate. A true like for like comparison with Youtube is not possible as Youtube don’t give as detailed analytics as Facebook, but on the face of it people who watched via Youtube, watched for longer.

Maybe this is because they are on dedicated video sharing platform, or viewing an embed on a site where they’ve intentionally gone to find news on a project.

Who’s the winner?

So which is better for video sharing? I think it depends. Looking at the Game of Thrones trailer was a folly. It is a massively popular television series with an audience of millions and fan base that has eagerly awaits any tidbit of information and will watch, re watch and share any news they can get on any platform it’s on.

But for community use, for local news and for niche topics both is best. Youtube for it’s search and the ability to share , tag and target niche audiences and Facebook for the sheer numbers, the way it will appear and re appear in peoples timelines and for accessibility.

But which ever is best I think we can see that when looking at popular content we can’t take the viewing figures at face value and if you want to embed a video using Youtube, don’t have the autoplay enabled if you want the view to count.

I suppose I should also finish this with a disclaimer. I am a Game of Thrones fan and this all started with me blatantly getting my Game of Thrones fix while I impatiently wait for the the sixth season to start in April, or George RR Martin to (finally) finish next book installment of the series The Winds of Winter, but I had some useful musings from it.

At the moment we are in the middle of a project working with the South Birmingham Safety Partnership. This involves running social media surgeries across communities in South Birmingham to improve civic conversations in those areas, get the communities and local partners talking to each other talking to each and getting their news online and hopefully by doing so positively changing their perceptions of safety.

Yesterday we had our second session in the Kings Norton. Jo Burrows, senior youth worker at the Three Estates Youth Project came along. Jo, by her own admission was a complete novice when it came to social media – she didn’t trust it – and this came through her lack of understanding of the tools that were available. After just one Social Media Surgery with us we managed to change some of those misgivings and set her up with her own blog for the Project. Here’s what she had to say :

When you’re writing content for your blog, you want people to be able to find it. Most people are going to find your blog after searching for something on Google. This is how to improve the likelihood that they will find you:

1. Write a meaningful headline

Headlines are one of the most important parts of your blog – not just for readers but for sites like Google which use it to decide what your blog post is about.

When you write a blog post, the headline should be as meaningful and factual as possible. ‘An event this weekend’ for example, tells us very little. ‘Council meeting at Sparkhill Community Centre’ is much better. If someone is searching for ‘Sparkhill’ or ‘council meeting’ or ‘community centre’ they are much more likely to find it.

A good technique is to put yourself in the place of someone looking for the information you’re publishing. Will they use the same jargon as you, or a more common term? Try to include in your headline the terms that people will use for their search.

2. Write meaningful content

Google will not just look at your headline when categorising a blog post. It will pay particular attention to your first paragraph, any subheadings, bold and italic text, and links.

Try to include important names, places and terms in those places. It not only makes it easier for Google, but also for readers, who will often look to the first par, subheadings, bold and italic text and links for the key information they’re seeking.

3. Categorise and tag your content

Once you’ve finished your post, make sure you categorise and tag it. The boxes to do that are to the right of your post as you write it (instructions for how to do this can be found here).

Categories and tags help Google to more accurately classify your content – but they also make it easier to find for people browsing your site. If something is categorised ‘Herefordshire’, for example, when someone has finished reading it they can click on the ‘Herefordshire’ category link to see all the other posts in that category.

4. Add an image – and an alternative description

An increasing number of people are using image searches to find content. When writing a post think if you have an image that suits it. If so, add it in (instructions can be found here) and make sure that the ‘alternative description’ box is filled with something meaningful and factual – this is the text that Google uses to categorise it.

5. Add text summaries to audio, images or video

Search engines like Google cannot hear audio or see photos or video, so they look around it to try to figure out what the content is about. If you are publishing audio or video include an introductory paragraph that explains who is speaking, where it was filmed, and what it is about. Make sure you include key places, names and phrases that people might use to find this content.

As an aside, if your video is hosted on YouTube or your images on Flickr, make sure you have a description on that site as well – and a link to the blog. More people use YouTube to search than use Yahoo! so it’s another way that people can find your information.